"And no matter how much maritime life has changed from the slavery era to today, I will always suspect that African Americans, slave and free, found their hopes uplifted and their lives unbounded merely by the nearness of the sea, by working on the water, and by the vast horizon over Pamlico Sound and the Atlantic. I have never known a soul who did not."David S. Cecelski. The Waterman's Song Slavery and Freedom in Maritime North Carolina